


One-marker

by zuzallove



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Geralt is an idiot, M/M, Pre-Slash, Soulmates, Translation Available, polish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22100347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zuzallove/pseuds/zuzallove
Summary: Some people are born with a thousand soulmates. Others with just one.Geralt has a meagre double mark.It doesn't matter, though, does it? It's not like he's going to have a relationship with either one of his soulmates.Cue Jaskier.[translation into Polish available]
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 158
Kudos: 3284
Collections: (GG) Witcher, (GG) [[Favourites]]





	One-marker

**Author's Note:**

> [Translation into Polish](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22242742) available, with many many thanks to [red_archer_archangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_archer_archangel/pseuds/red_archer_archangel) ^^

Some people are born with a thousand soulmates. Others with just one. Most of them, however, were somewhere in the middle, with numbers ranging from ten to a hundred or more.

Geralt wasn’t surprised when he became of age and got two single, solitary marks. The only thing rarer than a double mark was a single one.

Legend had it, the more complex your soul, the fewer marks you got, for it was more difficult to find a perfect match that suited all of the intricate, colourful patterns of a deep person’s inner life. Another legend stated that people who weren’t right, who had something rotten inside of them, could only have a few soulmates, because chaos was trying to protect others from them.

Geralt had always been a firm believer of the second theory.

He pitied the poor two idiots who happened to be his match, but didn’t worry too much about them. If they ever had the misfortune of coming across him, he would simply tell them he had found another match already. People did that all the time, considering how many possibilities they had.

A Witcher’s life wasn’t suited to this soulmate business. Geralt was well aware of it.

Jaskier was the sort of person who would probably have a big, fat number on their forearm, Geralt thought the second he met him. Maybe even a round million. People like Jaskier were easy, likeable, versatile. He expected him to have met his match – or a hundred of them – already.

Which is why, when he touched his left hand and saw stars, he was extremely surprised.

“What,” he growled, no intonation at all. “ _What_.”

Jaskier’s mouth was a perfect circle.

“Oh,” he breathed out. “Oh, fuck.”

Letting Jaskier down was easier than he expected. A polite “thank you, but no thank you” and one second later he was on Roach’s back, ready to go and check if those rumours about a kikimora were true. The only problem was… Jaskier followed him.

He took being rejected quite gracefully, but refused to be left alone and promptly decided to attach himself permanently at Geralt’s side.

“Doesn’t matter if it’s not going to become romantic,” he grunted, struggling to keep the pace as Roach – intentionally, blessed be her girl – trotted ahead. “It means something to me anyway.”

Geralt hoped that the silent treatment would deter him, but no such luck. If anything, Jaskier seemed to thrive on silence. It meant more chances for him to fill it with his blabbering and occasional tunes.

By day five, Geralt wanted to throttle him.

“What the hell do I have to do to get some peace and quiet?!” he finally screamed as Jaskier ended his tale about a dwarf, a man with two cocks and a blushing maiden.

“I don’t know,” Jaskier shrugged, his nonchalant attitude betrayed by the pointed tone of his voice. He cocked a hip and pretended to think. “You could try talking back, for instance.”

From that moment, Geralt hummed and even gave a few random answers. It bought him some temporary peace, but then he realised how close he was to actually talking to his soulmate. This was bad news. Besides, the expression of pure glee that appeared on Jaskier’s face every single time he talked back was the most irritating thing he’d ever seen.

“I need to do this alone,” he told him one night as they stared into the fire. “It’s too dangerous for you. You can’t beat monsters down with that lute of yours.”

Jaskier stared at him, his – admittedly perfect – features lit only by the soft glow of the embers. “So protect me.”

Geralt sighed. It was a lost cause.

He shook Jaskier off in a Northern town, where they were spotted by a man to whom, apparently, Jaskier owed a large debt. He left him there in the tavern to earn his freedom via singing. He suspected – and feared – that Jaskier was going delight the patrons with some of the many ballads about Geralt he composed during their trip together, but it was worth it. Being so close to one of his soulmates was starting to make him think crazy thoughts.

It didn’t matter that the second he hit the road, alone for the first time in two months, he immediately started to long for something – someone – to fill the oppressive silence.

“Pity you can’t sing, girl,” he said to Roach.

He swore it on the gods. She rolled her eyes.

His second soulmate, Yen, was batshit crazy. Full-blown insane. He never could understand how the universe had decided to match him to Jaskier, simple, easy-going, gorgeous Jaskier, but he could see the connection with Yennefer. She was gorgeous, too, that was not in question. Breath-taking, even. But her insanity matched his, as well. They had more in common that he thought he could ever have with a single person.

Fortunately for him, Yennefer was obsessed with becoming a mother.

“Sorry, Witcher,” she said, her tone unapologetic. She mounted her stallion. “But it’s enough having to fight off one sort of sterility. Two is too much, even for me. I have six other soulmates to meet before I settle for a Witcher.”

Geralt shrugged, unperturbed. Honestly, the roll in the sack she had provided had been more than enough for him. He didn’t feel owed in any way.

“Good luck, Yen,” he told her. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

He suspected that all her other soulmates were sterile, too. The universe was a son of a bitch like that.

Jaskier caught up with him six months after that. It was always disconcerting, seeing the signs of time passing on his face, while his remained the same. Geralt hid well the little somersault his stomach did upon meeting him again.

“So, how many more soulmates have you met since last we saw each other?” Geralt asked over a pint of ale, half joking, half dreading the answer, but nonetheless playing it off as a joke.

Jaskier smirked. “Now, now, wouldn’t you like to know.” 

Geralt wasn’t sure, actually. That he wanted to know.

But when he left town, and Jaskier followed again, he found that he couldn’t even try to stop him this time.

“You idiot. Let me see.”

“It’s fine, Geralt! Merely a scratch, really. I’ve seen worse in the bedroom. Hey, did I ever tell you about that one lady who…”

“Jaskier,” Geralt growled. “It could be serious. Show me.”

For a second, nothing happened. Jaskier looked right back at him, his jaw set, an unusually serious expression on his face. And then he bolted.

“You little shit!”

Without thinking twice, Geralt went after him. It didn’t take long to catch up with him, and if tackling him down gave him the slightest amount of pleasure, no one needed to know.

“Stop wriggling, moron, just let me take a look!” Jaskier was almost crazed, thrashing back and forth, protecting his arm from inspection.

“Leave me alone!”

Fed up and growling, Geralt tore up the sleeve and took a look. Then he blinked. And then he blinked again.

“Yes, fine, have a laugh at the freak, come on.” With tears of anger in his eyes, Jaskier shoved him off and got up, one hand curled protectively around the mark on his left arm.

Mark.

Mark. Singular.

“You’re a one-marker,” Geralt breathed.

“Yep,” Jaskier mock-laughed, no trace of mirth in his blue eyes. “Just think of that. I have fewer soulmates than I have eyes, and guess what? You’re it. My one chance at happiness, and it’s this brute who treats me like shit and tosses me on the ground whether I want to or not.”

Geralt didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry,” he eventually muttered. It was true, but it was also so very little to say in response to so huge a thing. It was so cheap.

“I don’t want you to be sorry,” Jaskier hissed. “I want you to be a better soulmate, because unlike everyone else, I don’t really have a choice.”

Geralt took a step closer, and Jaskier took a step back. He raised his hands.

“I’m not going to touch you,” he said in a calming voice, like Jaskier was a horse he didn’t want to spook. “I just want to show you something.”

Clearly wary, Jaskier took a look at Geralt’s arm, now bare of any clothing.

“You’re a two-marker,” Jaskier said, his eyebrows raising. He made eye-contact. “Your other…?”

“Not interested,” Geralt replied. “I met her a while ago. She wants to have a child, but I’m sterile.” Jaskier really didn’t need the full explanation.

Jaskier nodded and sat on the ground, still cradling his solitary mark.

“So, I’m it for you, too.”

“Jaskier…”

“No, no, it’s okay. One shot, one chance, and you still don’t want me. It’s fine.”

“It’s not that!” Geralt sat on the ground next to him. He took comfort in the knowledge that Jaskier didn’t draw back from him. If anything, he inched a bit closer. “My lifestyle, the way I am… when I say I’m sorry about being your soulmate, I mean it. But not in the way you think,” he added quickly, seeing the hurt look in Jaskier’s eyes. “I…” Fuck, Geralt wasn’t cut out for this sort of conversation. He really wasn’t. “I don’t…” Jaskier raised his eyebrows expectantly. Geralt hung his head down. “I’ll end up ruining your life.”

“Well, that’s a load of bullshit.”

Geralt shot his head up again. Jaskier didn’t seem taken aback by his confession.

“I’m not fit to be anyone’s soulmate,” Geralt insisted, frowning slightly. Why was Jaskier still here? Why hadn’t he run for the hills yet?

“You’re missing the concept of it all, now I understand,” Jaskier sighed, looking at him like he was a bit slow. “The universe isn’t blind, Geralt. It knows you’re a Witcher. It knows how you are… like, inside. And it decided to pair you off with me. Well, me and that lady you mentioned, okay, but don’t you understand what it means?”

Geralt blinked. He really didn’t.

Jaskier chuckled. “Your crazy matches my crazy,” he explained. “How do you think I’ve been feeling my whole life? Knowing I was so unlovable I could only have one soulmate? If anything, it’s you who should run away from me.”

“You’re not unlovable,” Geralt growled, immediately offended by the notion. How could Jaskier believe that?

“Well, that’s the point, you big idiot!” Geralt narrowed his eyes, a warning, but let him continue. “I am lovable… but only by you. So, when you say you’re not… I don’t know, fit, or whatever, pardon me, but I’m going to have to say… you’re an idiot.”

Geralt considered that for a while.

“So…” he started, then closed his mouth. He turned to look at his soulmate. Jaskier stared back, amused. “Where do we go from here?”

Jaskier looked around, his lips pursed as if he were considering something important.

“I don’t know. That thicket of bushes right there looks like a good spot.”

“A good spot for what?”

He barely caught Jaskier as he threw himself onto his lap.

Then they didn’t talk for four straight hours.

**Author's Note:**

> I have been sucked into this fandom and I'm powerless to resist the pull of these two idiots.  
> Disclaimer: English is not my first language, and all I know of The Witcher comes from the TV show.  
> So yeah. Have this small, dorky thing.


End file.
